our latest test copy of OFF_ANTHOLOGIA stolen again…
first film ready to burn and ship (see trailer on Home page)…
I’m off to visit Zeszyty Poetyckie in Gniezno…
Travel with Pawel Gawronski (see foto right) and his guitar…
Filming, translating, seeing the other side of the Grey Zone – the fields, the seas, the mountains…
See you back here in two weeks time – OFF_Marek
Today is the 21st of April. One month until the opening of the FESTA FATUORUM festival in Gniezno. Over 140 poets have already sent in work for the competition which closes on the 1st of May. More is to come.
The jurors from Zeszyty Poetyckie will then then have seven days in which to choose the list of finalists. On the 7th of May, they will send me the best 20-30 entries. They will also invite the short-listed poets to be at the FESTA FATUORUM festival in Gniezno, opening on the 21st of May, where the ultimate winner will be announced.
On the 8th of May, I will set off on a two week journey around Poland (plane tickets already booked). Just me, my video camera and a bag of poems. As I travel around, I will film everything I see and translate the poems. I will also try and visit as many Polish poets as I can.
Muses willing, I will arrive in Gniezno for the opening of FESTA FATUORUM, where I will film the festival, interview the poets I will have been translating, then head back to London to edit the film and finalise the translations.
The translations will then appear in two separate volumes of poetry – the collected anthology of 20-30 poets (3-5 poems each) and the winning poet’s own individual collection. The film of my trip of discovery will then be given away free on DVD with every copy of the two books (which will be available separately or as a twin set).
marek kazmierski, OFF_PRESS londyn
Kinoteka Film Festival, 2010, triple film review
Let’s start this piece of vicious writing on a positive note. Nothing screened this year could be anywhere near as dire as Andrzej Wajda’s 2007 “Katyn”. I saw it in London last year, rooted to my cinema seat by the sheer awfulness of what I was witnessing – the dead-icon imagery, the sub-soap opera dialogue, the giant waste of the best acting talent Poland has to offer, the paper thin characters, the plot schisms, the editing mess… a few said it was good for Polish school kids to go see some of the history which communists had hidden for several generations, but school kids want their history strong and vital, not dumbed down and deathly dull.
It’s interesting to note none of the delighted reviews in the Guardian or Times or other high-brow publications actually talked about the film – they all focused on Wajda’s losing his own father in Katyn and about the moving theme of the story. Think I’m being insensitive and wickedly arrogant? Be honest, which is more important to you: what’s on at your local cinema today or what battles are being fought in the name of freedom, even as we speak? I sympathise with Wajda’s loss (both of my grandfathers had spent time in Nazi camps, though both survived), but films must be judged on merit and not personal feelings – if you are going to tackle big themes in your work, especially if it is reaching millions of impressionable hearts and minds, serve them well.
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Riverside Studios, The Barbican, BFI Southbank, Tate Modern, Prince Charles Cinema, Tricycle Cinema, West London Synagogue…
If that list of locations isn’t getting you curious, the full film line up should;
the winner of the Golden Lion at this year’s Polish Film Festival, Borys Lankosz’s Reverse, Michal Rosa’s Scratch, Jacek Boruch’s All That I Love, Bartek Konopka’s Oscar shortlisted, Rabbit a la Berlin, Xawery Zulawski’s Snow White, Russian Red, Marcin Wrona’s My Flesh My Blood and Pawel Borowski’s Zero.
click on the logo to the right to enter Kinoteka…
First editorial movie meeting of the year… Lilian in the directorial seat, 
Marek script advising – our task to edit 16 hours of footage from our trip right across Poland back in October if last year in time for the launch in March.
The film covers our meetings with the five Polish authors in our OFF_ANTHOLOGIA #1 and shows Lilian, Marek and Sam stumbling across 7 cities in 7 days, trying to discover, and film, the heart of this fascinating land…
Hence the working title – Through a Grey Zone…
